"Coating" implies a single layer, but it is the same idea. Some screens do have one, but I have yet to see any that approach the effectiveness of that on quality optics. Whenever I hear "glossy," I think Apple; most of the rest are a poor approximation. Besides, quality AR screens do not deserve the "glossy" label.
Adding an identical AR film on top of another serves no purpose. An ideal AR "coating" is actually a film stack with an infinite number of layers of exponentially varying thickness and IOR. (I don't recall the specifics of the derivation, but it was presented in one of my physics classes.)
Neither are optimal, and people should not be so polarized on the issue; there is a better option. It is called an anti reflective film, and you will find one on every piece of quality camera optics or eyeglasses. The goal of this film is to make lenses invisible, in order to transmit as much of the light as possible. (Which is more or less the antithesis of glossy. Matte is also reflective, it merely diffuses the light, though still degrades the image.)
Anyway, the default state of my glossy MacBook was nearly intolerable. Fortunately, I came across an aftermarket AR film, the Nushield DayVue. It is less than ideal and painful to install properly, but it is a clear improvement. (For best results, there must be an AR film stack on each surface, but the interior surfaces are not accessible in this case.)
Microsoft is the perfect example here. The bad will that they have generated with their business practices will ensure that they have no future, or at best, one in which they "limp along."
Open source alternatives to Oracle may not exist today, but they will arrive in time. As for not trusting OSS solutions, that is plain nonsense; many critical systems (including stock exchanges) already run on OSS platforms.
Oracle doesn't care about you unless you're willing to spend a lot of money. That's not bad, that's just their business model.
No, that is bad; in the long term it will ensure their own demise. Actually, never mind, that is good. It is just a shame that they are wasting all of Sun's innovation in the process.
This is one of the great problems with investment in America; senseless greed ensures that the bulk of the money is concentrated in short-term high-return investments, which produce little overall value outside of these investments. The companies are set on a course for self-destruction, and the investors jump ship when appropriate.
For a long time, I have wanted a tablet like device which I can write/draw on, and use with pen-optimized input systems like ShapeWriter or HexInput. (Though ideally, I would like to write one myself...)
Is there any such hardware? As far as I am aware, it should be possible to offer multitouch and a stylus in the same device. The lack of both makes such devices much less compelling.
Indeed, hybrids are far more practical, but it seems that you are misrepresenting the promise of microturbines. From the wikipedia article:
Typical microturbine efficiencies are 25 to 35%. When in a combined heat and power cogeneration system, efficiencies of greater than 80% are commonly achieved.
In automotive applications, the waste heat goes unused; so the efficiency will be in the 25 to 35% range.
Another promising option for hybrids is the OPOC engine, which is a simple, efficient, and clean 2-stroke engine. It is a very interesting design, with a number of other advantages as well.
When coupled with a capacitor/flywheel/etc. to allow for regenerative braking and acceleration, the requirements for the power source in a hybrid are actually very minimal. This allows for the creation of an extremely efficient vehicle, and as far as energy density goes, you can't do much better than hydrocarbons.
Perhaps it is a clever algorithm, but the summary and article make it sound like he is re-inventing the pixel. I don't think that is correct. The example shown starts with a square-pixel image, and outputs another square-pixel image, just at a finer resolution with less blockiness.
While it does appear to work, it isn't clear to me how much information can be inferred correctly. Furthermore, cameras often don't use square sensors to begin with, so this isn't directly applicable to the raw image format.
In my experience, this is the exception, rather than the rule with hard disks. The most common problem is with USB/1394 enclosures, where the bridge chip typically only implements the barest subset of commands. I would be surprised if you found any relatively modern disk itself which lied, though if you have, it would be appreciated if you could share your findings.
However, I disagree with your conclusion; a battery backup is a band-aid solution. It is best to avoid such hardware. For critical systems, one should either buy pre-qualified hardware, or qualify it themselves.
That tool does not specifically check hardware--it checks the end-to-end functionality of fsync(). If the drive doesn't flush the cache properly it will fail, but failure does not necessarily indicate that the drive is responsible.
For example, it will fail on any Mac, since Apple's fsync() semantics are broken by default. If you want your applications to work properly on the Mac, you need to replace calls to fsync() with fcntl(F_FULLFSYNC), like so:
--- diskchecker.pl 2009-02-09 20:45:43.000000000 -0600 +++ diskchecker-darwin.pl 2009-02-10 13:40:07.000000000 -0600 @@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
use strict;
use IO::Socket::INET;
use IO::Handle; +use Fcntl;
use Getopt::Long;
use Socket qw(IPPROTO_TCP TCP_NODELAY);
@@ -134,7 +135,7 @@
sysseek F,$offset,0;
my $wv = syswrite(F, $buf, $LEN);
die "return value wasn't $LEN\n" unless $wv == $LEN; - $ioh->sync or die "couldn't do IO::Handle::sync"; # does fsync + fcntl($ioh, 51, 0) or die "couldn't do fcntl(F_FULLFSYNC)";
While most every hard disk supports and respects proper cache flush semantics, SSDs typically trade performance for data integrity. Although it should be a standard feature, very few SSDs include a capacitor to prevent filesystem/data corruption in the event of power loss.
Unfortunately, the vendors are very secretive about SSD internals, and the algorithms they choose to employ can also have a significant effect on data integrity. At this point in time, there is far too much blind faith required, and many vendors definitely do not deserve it.
for any company who abuses their position to extract unreasonable profits from their customers. People will only put up with it until there are viable alternatives, and by that point, it is far too late; nothing will be able to offset the accumulated hostility.
Other companies that appear to be following this path are Oracle and Apple. You simply can't jerk people around forever without consequence.
The problem is that a Flash based SSD needs to have a pool of unused blocks to work around the block-erase stupidity. However, trim only "solves" the problem when there is a good deal of free space on the drive anyway; when the drive nears full, it is useless. At the current pricing, people don't buy SSDs to keep them empty, and one would not expect an SSD to perform badly when full, as with rotating rust.
The solution is to provision enough extra blocks on the drive beyond the advertised capacity. While the vendors refuse to do this, you may do so yourself. Simply create an empty partition the drive--just make sure it isn't ever written or zeroed.
Anyway, the vendors' motivation to cut corners here should be perfectly clear.
Better that, than demonstrating that the law has no teeth; that would just open the flood gates to further abuse.
Let's be clear: Oracle cheated the US. If the evidence is valid, they are not going to gain anything by dragging out the trial, if they are even allowed to. Hopefully the jugement will also include some hefty punitive damages as well, as this should be not be tolerated.
This is demonstrably false. I have plenty of papers on experiments that operate in this "regime". You want to believe its different, so you have a leg to stand on. But its not.
Cite one please. There is plenty of data on Fusors, but the wiffleball formation is exclusive to the Polywell, and very little research has been published on it. If this had all been done before, than there wouldn't be any need to do the experiments.
And you don't need collisions with electrons to show that this still does not work. The ions end up in a Maxwelleian distribution before any decent fusion has taken place because of *ion-ion* collisions. If you have electrons anywhere around the device, which the polywell does, you get collisions with them too. You can't prevent it, since the electromagnetic force is long ranged. Ions will interact (collide in a manner of speaking) with electrons too. And far more often than the ions can fuse.
There is little momentum transfer in the electron-ion collisions though. Anyway, I won't say anything further here, as it is a complex system with a number of subtleties, and I am not qualified to argue it. What I will say though, after having read through the various discussions, is that there are concerns, but they are not the ones you mention.
This demonstrates your total lack of understanding of modern physics and how systems are simulated (hint: fluid dynamic codes don't simulate every atom). This is completely wrong. I have read papers where polywell type devices and fusors *are* simulated. Hell even I have written some of my own code to do it.
Again, the contents of a Polywell are nothing like a fluid; it is more like a spherical colliding beam machine, and the shape of the well is dependent on motion of all of particles. It may be possible to do cut corners, but it will still require a supercomputer for even a rough simulation. Simulations are useful, but they are no substitute for experiments.
If what you say is even remotely true, then where are all these predictions of awesome fusion power coming from? Its intractable and you can't solve anything, so therefore you can't have any predictions about performance.
You are arguing the need for an accurate simulation to make the step from theory and experimental data to predictions? That makes no sense.
Extraordinary claims require at least *some* data to support claims. At least some evidence that the criticisms are somehow incorrect. The polywell has none.
There is *some* data to support the claims; not much, but some. That is why they are investigating it--to get more data and see if the postulated scaling laws hold. There is no data that proves it won't work, just hand waving. Again, citations are welcome.
The evidence may not be publicly available, but there is no indication that the ones who do have access to it are lying to us, and they are cautiously optimistic.
They also funded cold fusion. The navy giving funding to something is not a vote of scientific merit.
The Navy is being very careful about this. Unlike some other projects, continued funding is dependent on results, so their review board is clearly convinced that it merits further study.
Well all the data on this i have seen does not suggest this at all. In fact the losses look about right from theory. Massively higher than the fusion yield.
Aside from Bussard's results, there is no data on systems operating within the wiffleball regime. This is a necessary condition.
Since fusion requires a *collision*, and thermalizing is via *collisions* this is quite false. You can't change the fact that the probability of scattering is *much* higher than the probability of fusion. This means that thermalization is the faster process.
Fusion does NOT require collisions between the electrons and ions. Unlike a thermal system which depends on the long tail, most of the ions have sufficient energy to fuse in a collision.
The polywell is quite tractable numerically in any practical sense. If its not, where are all the predictions coming from? We can simulate tokamaks with some degree of success. The plasma parameters of a polywell make it easier, not harder.
Tokamaks are in thermal equilibrium with a neutral charge distribution, which allows approximations to be reasonably accurate. The Polywell is not, and would require a full N-body simulation, which is intractable for the values of N in question.
Anyway, while there is not yet proof that it will work, there is none that it won't. Every criticism you have has been addressed in that forum I linked, and Dr. Nebel's explanations will be better than my attempts.
I am rather disappointed that the scientific community at large is so dogmatic about presently accepted theories, and so willing to look the other way in the presence of something potentially interesting. Even with cold fusion, where it is now widely accepted that there is an unknown process at work, the stigma remains.
Likewise with Johan Prins discovery and new theories for room temperature superconductivity which have been completely ignored, while BCS theory doesn't even accurately describe present experimental evidence for high-Tc superconductors. I'm not aware of any disconfirmation of what appears to be a very interesting experimental result, just hand waving about the impossible.
Yes, they are relatively immature, but still promising. They also have the advantage that the physics behind each of them do not necessitate enormous experimental machines or absurdly huge production machines. Should any of them pan out, they will be immensely more useful than a Tokamak.
ITER is more or less a proof of concept that the approach will never be economically viable, even if it does work. The machines are necessarily extremely large, expensive, and would require much more extensive distribution infrastructure and associated losses.
That's not to say ITER won't work, or shouldn't be funded, just that doing so at the expense of all other fusion research is not a good investment. We should be heavily investing in as many forms of nuclear as possible, including modern fission reactors. Fission alone could easily meet our needs, and can be done safely today; it is a simple matter of throwing engineering resources at it.
There has been a rather polarized set of opinions on the topic of the Polywell, or any P-b device for that matter, but as of yet, the experimental evidence seems to be promising, and the Navy continues to fund it. Rather than going into detail, I will point those interested to talk-polywell.org, where a lot of discussion on the various criticisms has taken place.
In particular, rnebel's comments have been illuminating. Dr. Nebel is responsible for continuing Dr. Bussard's Polywell research, and has made it clear that there are no show stoppers thus far. He is also a well respected physicist, so I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Anyway, the electron scattering and xray losses turn out to be considerably less than one would expect in the Polywell. Furthermore, it is not a thermal system, so much of the conventional wisdom does not apply. It isn't that entropy needs to go away, but it doesn't play a big part at the timescales in question. (ie. it doesn't thermalize quickly enough to matter, and there may even be a mechanism which prevents it from thermalizing.)
I'm not sure what experimental counter evidence you are referring to, as this is a rather unique system which has not been studied elsewhere. It is also a computationally intractable problem, so there are no shortcuts in this case.
As for the Tri Alpha's FRC device, I admit to having little knowledge. However, there are well respected physicists who do take it very seriously; one of whom was extremely skeptical on the talk-polywell forums. While still not optimistic, even he was convinced that the Polywell may in fact work.
I completely agree with your comment on further funding though.
Two options? This isn't US politics; there are a number of methods by which we may achieve fusion, and no doubt, more will be imagined. The main problem, is that nothing outside of the two methods you mention have received serious funding.
Here are a few other methods, all of which hold promise for solving the energy crises. We should know within a few years which are practical.
Actually, it is ironic that Apple hasn't moved to UEFI. They are using one of the older versions of EFI before they stuffed it with the various "trusted" crap.
Unfortunately, coreboot continues to have very limited board support, as most vendors are not at all forthcoming with chipset documentation. It is surprising that the various board manufacturers haven't embraced it though; it would be one less thing to license. It may be that NDA issues prevent them from doing so.
I'm not sure if anyone can say with certainty what the future will hold if we embrace UEFI, and we may not even have the choice in many cases. With all the anti-competitive behavior in the industry though, it is certain to be abused.
I feel just as strongly about replacing the BIOS, and indeed just about anything would be better. UEFI is not though; it effectively transfers ownership of your hardware to some untrusted third party. It is effectively DRM on the bare metal, which can't be removed.
If you want to advocate for something, try coreboot.
Just say no to "trusted computing" and "trusted platforms"; this is almost universally an indication that someone else can trust your hardware to enforce their restrictions.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, for a single frequency, the answer is straightforward. The general solution is more fun, since every layer affects every frequency.
"Coating" implies a single layer, but it is the same idea. Some screens do have one, but I have yet to see any that approach the effectiveness of that on quality optics. Whenever I hear "glossy," I think Apple; most of the rest are a poor approximation. Besides, quality AR screens do not deserve the "glossy" label.
Adding an identical AR film on top of another serves no purpose. An ideal AR "coating" is actually a film stack with an infinite number of layers of exponentially varying thickness and IOR. (I don't recall the specifics of the derivation, but it was presented in one of my physics classes.)
Neither are optimal, and people should not be so polarized on the issue; there is a better option. It is called an anti reflective film, and you will find one on every piece of quality camera optics or eyeglasses. The goal of this film is to make lenses invisible, in order to transmit as much of the light as possible. (Which is more or less the antithesis of glossy. Matte is also reflective, it merely diffuses the light, though still degrades the image.)
Anyway, the default state of my glossy MacBook was nearly intolerable. Fortunately, I came across an aftermarket AR film, the Nushield DayVue. It is less than ideal and painful to install properly, but it is a clear improvement. (For best results, there must be an AR film stack on each surface, but the interior surfaces are not accessible in this case.)
Is that supposed to be a joke? Like the DNSSEC in 6 minutes presentation?
That also glosses over the key rotation issue, which must be addressed, or your DNS will self-destruct.
but I will decide what software is "authorized" to run on my phone!
No sale for you.
Microsoft is the perfect example here. The bad will that they have generated with their business practices will ensure that they have no future, or at best, one in which they "limp along."
Open source alternatives to Oracle may not exist today, but they will arrive in time. As for not trusting OSS solutions, that is plain nonsense; many critical systems (including stock exchanges) already run on OSS platforms.
Oracle doesn't care about you unless you're willing to spend a lot of money. That's not bad, that's just their business model.
No, that is bad; in the long term it will ensure their own demise. Actually, never mind, that is good. It is just a shame that they are wasting all of Sun's innovation in the process.
This is one of the great problems with investment in America; senseless greed ensures that the bulk of the money is concentrated in short-term high-return investments, which produce little overall value outside of these investments. The companies are set on a course for self-destruction, and the investors jump ship when appropriate.
See the second post in the recent thread on zfs-discuss: Legality and the future of zfs...
It doesn't sound as if Netapp has a leg to stand on, so they are trying to shake down the companies while they can. Where have we seen this before?
For a long time, I have wanted a tablet like device which I can write/draw on, and use with pen-optimized input systems like ShapeWriter or HexInput. (Though ideally, I would like to write one myself...)
Is there any such hardware? As far as I am aware, it should be possible to offer multitouch and a stylus in the same device. The lack of both makes such devices much less compelling.
Indeed, hybrids are far more practical, but it seems that you are misrepresenting the promise of microturbines. From the wikipedia article:
Typical microturbine efficiencies are 25 to 35%. When in a combined heat and power cogeneration system, efficiencies of greater than 80% are commonly achieved.
In automotive applications, the waste heat goes unused; so the efficiency will be in the 25 to 35% range.
Another promising option for hybrids is the OPOC engine, which is a simple, efficient, and clean 2-stroke engine. It is a very interesting design, with a number of other advantages as well.
When coupled with a capacitor/flywheel/etc. to allow for regenerative braking and acceleration, the requirements for the power source in a hybrid are actually very minimal. This allows for the creation of an extremely efficient vehicle, and as far as energy density goes, you can't do much better than hydrocarbons.
Perhaps it is a clever algorithm, but the summary and article make it sound like he is re-inventing the pixel. I don't think that is correct. The example shown starts with a square-pixel image, and outputs another square-pixel image, just at a finer resolution with less blockiness.
While it does appear to work, it isn't clear to me how much information can be inferred correctly. Furthermore, cameras often don't use square sensors to begin with, so this isn't directly applicable to the raw image format.
In my experience, this is the exception, rather than the rule with hard disks. The most common problem is with USB/1394 enclosures, where the bridge chip typically only implements the barest subset of commands. I would be surprised if you found any relatively modern disk itself which lied, though if you have, it would be appreciated if you could share your findings.
However, I disagree with your conclusion; a battery backup is a band-aid solution. It is best to avoid such hardware. For critical systems, one should either buy pre-qualified hardware, or qualify it themselves.
That tool does not specifically check hardware--it checks the end-to-end functionality of fsync(). If the drive doesn't flush the cache properly it will fail, but failure does not necessarily indicate that the drive is responsible.
For example, it will fail on any Mac, since Apple's fsync() semantics are broken by default. If you want your applications to work properly on the Mac, you need to replace calls to fsync() with fcntl(F_FULLFSYNC), like so:
--- diskchecker.pl 2009-02-09 20:45:43.000000000 -0600
+++ diskchecker-darwin.pl 2009-02-10 13:40:07.000000000 -0600
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
use strict;
use IO::Socket::INET;
use IO::Handle;
+use Fcntl;
use Getopt::Long;
use Socket qw(IPPROTO_TCP TCP_NODELAY);
@@ -134,7 +135,7 @@
sysseek F,$offset,0;
my $wv = syswrite(F, $buf, $LEN);
die "return value wasn't $LEN\n" unless $wv == $LEN;
- $ioh->sync or die "couldn't do IO::Handle::sync"; # does fsync
+ fcntl($ioh, 51, 0) or die "couldn't do fcntl(F_FULLFSYNC)";
sendmsg($sock, "post\t$pagenum\t$rand");
While most every hard disk supports and respects proper cache flush semantics, SSDs typically trade performance for data integrity. Although it should be a standard feature, very few SSDs include a capacitor to prevent filesystem/data corruption in the event of power loss.
Unfortunately, the vendors are very secretive about SSD internals, and the algorithms they choose to employ can also have a significant effect on data integrity. At this point in time, there is far too much blind faith required, and many vendors definitely do not deserve it.
for any company who abuses their position to extract unreasonable profits from their customers. People will only put up with it until there are viable alternatives, and by that point, it is far too late; nothing will be able to offset the accumulated hostility.
Other companies that appear to be following this path are Oracle and Apple. You simply can't jerk people around forever without consequence.
The problem is that a Flash based SSD needs to have a pool of unused blocks to work around the block-erase stupidity. However, trim only "solves" the problem when there is a good deal of free space on the drive anyway; when the drive nears full, it is useless. At the current pricing, people don't buy SSDs to keep them empty, and one would not expect an SSD to perform badly when full, as with rotating rust.
The solution is to provision enough extra blocks on the drive beyond the advertised capacity. While the vendors refuse to do this, you may do so yourself. Simply create an empty partition the drive--just make sure it isn't ever written or zeroed.
Anyway, the vendors' motivation to cut corners here should be perfectly clear.
Better that, than demonstrating that the law has no teeth; that would just open the flood gates to further abuse.
Let's be clear: Oracle cheated the US. If the evidence is valid, they are not going to gain anything by dragging out the trial, if they are even allowed to. Hopefully the jugement will also include some hefty punitive damages as well, as this should be not be tolerated.
This is demonstrably false. I have plenty of papers on experiments that operate in this "regime". You want to believe its different, so you have a leg to stand on. But its not.
Cite one please. There is plenty of data on Fusors, but the wiffleball formation is exclusive to the Polywell, and very little research has been published on it. If this had all been done before, than there wouldn't be any need to do the experiments.
And you don't need collisions with electrons to show that this still does not work. The ions end up in a Maxwelleian distribution before any decent fusion has taken place because of *ion-ion* collisions. If you have electrons anywhere around the device, which the polywell does, you get collisions with them too. You can't prevent it, since the electromagnetic force is long ranged. Ions will interact (collide in a manner of speaking) with electrons too. And far more often than the ions can fuse.
There is little momentum transfer in the electron-ion collisions though. Anyway, I won't say anything further here, as it is a complex system with a number of subtleties, and I am not qualified to argue it. What I will say though, after having read through the various discussions, is that there are concerns, but they are not the ones you mention.
This demonstrates your total lack of understanding of modern physics and how systems are simulated (hint: fluid dynamic codes don't simulate every atom). This is completely wrong. I have read papers where polywell type devices and fusors *are* simulated. Hell even I have written some of my own code to do it.
Again, the contents of a Polywell are nothing like a fluid; it is more like a spherical colliding beam machine, and the shape of the well is dependent on motion of all of particles. It may be possible to do cut corners, but it will still require a supercomputer for even a rough simulation. Simulations are useful, but they are no substitute for experiments.
If what you say is even remotely true, then where are all these predictions of awesome fusion power coming from? Its intractable and you can't solve anything, so therefore you can't have any predictions about performance.
You are arguing the need for an accurate simulation to make the step from theory and experimental data to predictions? That makes no sense.
Extraordinary claims require at least *some* data to support claims. At least some evidence that the criticisms are somehow incorrect. The polywell has none.
There is *some* data to support the claims; not much, but some. That is why they are investigating it--to get more data and see if the postulated scaling laws hold. There is no data that proves it won't work, just hand waving. Again, citations are welcome.
What evidence?
The evidence may not be publicly available, but there is no indication that the ones who do have access to it are lying to us, and they are cautiously optimistic.
They also funded cold fusion. The navy giving funding to something is not a vote of scientific merit.
The Navy is being very careful about this. Unlike some other projects, continued funding is dependent on results, so their review board is clearly convinced that it merits further study.
Well all the data on this i have seen does not suggest this at all. In fact the losses look about right from theory. Massively higher than the fusion yield.
Aside from Bussard's results, there is no data on systems operating within the wiffleball regime. This is a necessary condition.
Since fusion requires a *collision*, and thermalizing is via *collisions* this is quite false. You can't change the fact that the probability of scattering is *much* higher than the probability of fusion. This means that thermalization is the faster process.
Fusion does NOT require collisions between the electrons and ions. Unlike a thermal system which depends on the long tail, most of the ions have sufficient energy to fuse in a collision.
The polywell is quite tractable numerically in any practical sense. If its not, where are all the predictions coming from? We can simulate tokamaks with some degree of success. The plasma parameters of a polywell make it easier, not harder.
Tokamaks are in thermal equilibrium with a neutral charge distribution, which allows approximations to be reasonably accurate. The Polywell is not, and would require a full N-body simulation, which is intractable for the values of N in question.
Anyway, while there is not yet proof that it will work, there is none that it won't. Every criticism you have has been addressed in that forum I linked, and Dr. Nebel's explanations will be better than my attempts.
I am rather disappointed that the scientific community at large is so dogmatic about presently accepted theories, and so willing to look the other way in the presence of something potentially interesting. Even with cold fusion, where it is now widely accepted that there is an unknown process at work, the stigma remains.
Likewise with Johan Prins discovery and new theories for room temperature superconductivity which have been completely ignored, while BCS theory doesn't even accurately describe present experimental evidence for high-Tc superconductors. I'm not aware of any disconfirmation of what appears to be a very interesting experimental result, just hand waving about the impossible.
Yes, they are relatively immature, but still promising. They also have the advantage that the physics behind each of them do not necessitate enormous experimental machines or absurdly huge production machines. Should any of them pan out, they will be immensely more useful than a Tokamak.
ITER is more or less a proof of concept that the approach will never be economically viable, even if it does work. The machines are necessarily extremely large, expensive, and would require much more extensive distribution infrastructure and associated losses.
That's not to say ITER won't work, or shouldn't be funded, just that doing so at the expense of all other fusion research is not a good investment. We should be heavily investing in as many forms of nuclear as possible, including modern fission reactors. Fission alone could easily meet our needs, and can be done safely today; it is a simple matter of throwing engineering resources at it.
There has been a rather polarized set of opinions on the topic of the Polywell, or any P-b device for that matter, but as of yet, the experimental evidence seems to be promising, and the Navy continues to fund it. Rather than going into detail, I will point those interested to talk-polywell.org, where a lot of discussion on the various criticisms has taken place.
In particular, rnebel's comments have been illuminating. Dr. Nebel is responsible for continuing Dr. Bussard's Polywell research, and has made it clear that there are no show stoppers thus far. He is also a well respected physicist, so I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Anyway, the electron scattering and xray losses turn out to be considerably less than one would expect in the Polywell. Furthermore, it is not a thermal system, so much of the conventional wisdom does not apply. It isn't that entropy needs to go away, but it doesn't play a big part at the timescales in question. (ie. it doesn't thermalize quickly enough to matter, and there may even be a mechanism which prevents it from thermalizing.)
I'm not sure what experimental counter evidence you are referring to, as this is a rather unique system which has not been studied elsewhere. It is also a computationally intractable problem, so there are no shortcuts in this case.
As for the Tri Alpha's FRC device, I admit to having little knowledge. However, there are well respected physicists who do take it very seriously; one of whom was extremely skeptical on the talk-polywell forums. While still not optimistic, even he was convinced that the Polywell may in fact work.
I completely agree with your comment on further funding though.
Two options? This isn't US politics; there are a number of methods by which we may achieve fusion, and no doubt, more will be imagined. The main problem, is that nothing outside of the two methods you mention have received serious funding.
Here are a few other methods, all of which hold promise for solving the energy crises. We should know within a few years which are practical.
Polywell
Magnetized Target Fusion (General Fusion)
Colliding Beam Fusion/FRC (Tri Alpha Energy)
Dense Plasma Focus
Even if none work out, their combined cost is a pittance compared to the funds being poured into ITER.
The set could be extended in a future version of Unicode.
So slashcode will need another update. Better that than being permanently broken.
And like an additional block of control characters (0x80-0x9F) was added in the ISO 8859 encodings.
Just how often does that happen?
At any rate these justifications are lame. Just fix it, please!
Actually, it is ironic that Apple hasn't moved to UEFI. They are using one of the older versions of EFI before they stuffed it with the various "trusted" crap.
Unfortunately, coreboot continues to have very limited board support, as most vendors are not at all forthcoming with chipset documentation. It is surprising that the various board manufacturers haven't embraced it though; it would be one less thing to license. It may be that NDA issues prevent them from doing so.
I'm not sure if anyone can say with certainty what the future will hold if we embrace UEFI, and we may not even have the choice in many cases. With all the anti-competitive behavior in the industry though, it is certain to be abused.
I feel just as strongly about replacing the BIOS, and indeed just about anything would be better. UEFI is not though; it effectively transfers ownership of your hardware to some untrusted third party. It is effectively DRM on the bare metal, which can't be removed.
If you want to advocate for something, try coreboot.
Just say no to "trusted computing" and "trusted platforms"; this is almost universally an indication that someone else can trust your hardware to enforce their restrictions.